Genrenauts – A Very Strong Book Recommendation

So I have been happily listening to the Writing Excuses podcast for a while now.

Periodically, they recommend various authors or books.

One of the books that they’ve been recommending for rather a very long time now (over and over again) is called Genrenauts.

Genrenauts (like “astronauts” of “genre”) is a series of novellas written by Michael Underwood. Here’s the official Amazon blurb for it:

Struggling stand-up comic Leah Tang is offered a once-in-a-lifetime chance to join the Genrenauts, a secret organization of dimensional travelers. Leah learns that our world is just one of many, and every other world is the home of a story genre — Science Fiction or Romance, Fantasy or Western — populated by archetypal characters and constantly playing out familiar stories.

The Genrenauts’ mission: find and fix broken stories. If they fail, the ripples from the story worlds will cause havoc and devastation on their home world. Leah joins the team and dives head-first into the adventure. But the stories are breaking faster and worse than ever before. Will Leah rise to the occasion, or will she end up as just another broken story?

It.

Is.

AMAZING.

It does what Ready Player One tried (and kinda failed) to do for me with its use of popular media in references. I don’t feel alienated by them … instead, I feel the same way I do when my friends talk about the things they love.

It does what Redshirts tried (and mostly succeeded) in doing by bringing tropes out of the background and using them as intentional plot devices wielded by characters.

It has a culturally diverse cast that doesn’t feel forced or awkward.

I get to see these amazing characters in all sorts of settings, which is more thrilling than I expected. I met them in a Western, and now they’re in a Space Opera and goshdangitall, it’s just FUN.

I bought the Complete Season 1 Collection and I’m only halfway through the second of six novellas and I had to stop and tell you guys about it.